A good bit of folk lore advice for this month! “In December keep yourself warm and sleep”!! We get the winter solstice on the 22nd when the sun reaches the tropic of Capricorn and we get our shortest daylight hours. Apologies to you all for sending you on a wild goose chase last month; the wild mushrooms were few and far between, I was hard put too to find even honey fungus! My preparations for these nature notes always involve a walk around the park in the last few days of the previous month. This year, inspite of the winds, there are still plenty of leaves on the trees. Some are even still green! No doubt it’s the effect of global warming again! We’ve had a couple of hard frosts (November 21/22nd) so that should encourage the trees to shed their leaves. As usual the Caucasian Wing-nut, on the “MUGA” corner of the avenue beside the huge Holly hedge, is still delaying putting on any autumn colour and shedding its leaves. Last December’s nature notes featured the Thrush family winter migrants, Fieldfare and Redwing. So far this year there’s been no sight of them; we have a glut of berries so presumably there’s a plentiful supply of berries for them not to need to migrate to find ours! Keep a look out for them when the days get colder. The Robins are singing their winter song; you can usually find Robins out and about near the council shipping containers and in the Italianate (Rose) Garden. The numbers of gulls foraging on the playing fields are increasing; look out for the smaller (not so) Common Gull with its green legs. The Crow numbers are building up too but we’ve still along way to go before we rival the numbers of gulls and crows on Plumstead Common! There are still a few wildflowers in bloom in sheltered places; Dead Nettle and Yarrow. They both have white flowers: I wonder if there’s any significance in that? Progress on the sale of the Mansion and Winter Garden seems to have gone rather quiet! Rumour has it that one education “Academy” has pulled out but another has been found. Who knows? We’ll have to wait and see!
Don’t forget to come along to the park café for their Christmas celebration on December 12th, 2.00 to 4.00. Our old favourites the Eldorado Players will be entertaining and rumour has it that Father Christmas will be there with mulled wine and mince pies. See you there!
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AuthorsAll parks have a great history, created as public open, green spaces by visionary men and women for the people to enjoy. Archives
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